All You Need Is Love!
by Mirune Keishiko
Summary: Unusually worried and preoccupied about a certain cough problem, Aoshi gets by with a little help from his friends. Beatles songfic. Aoshipretty much any darn creature you want to marry him off with.


**A/N.** For whatever reason, the idea for this came to me as I was brushing my teeth(!) this morning.

_Shiko-chan does not own the Rurouni Kenshin characters here, nor does she own the Beatles song. This bit of silliness is clearly not for profit, prolly wouldn't make any anyway even if it were._

This says a lot about where I'm stalled with MnM right now. Hee (sorry readers!). But as the summary says, this can stand alone apart from MnM, and you can put, hmm, just about any Aoshi-mate you want...

Kindly put your brain on hold while reading this. It will also help a lot to have the actual song by the Beatles playing in the background. Have fun minna!

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**All You Need Is Love**

_a random omake/songfic by Mirune Keishiko_

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The ring in his pocket couldn't have weighed much more than a few ounces, and it made for a barely perceptible bulge in his pocket. But he felt as though a huge stone were nestled in his suit, dragging down his clothes and his muddled, feebly resisting spirit along with it.

He walked slowly down the street, absent-mindedly keeping to the shadows in the deepening dusk, keeping himself well out of sight of passersby more out of force of habit than out of any conscious effort.

Well, not quite out of sight.

He stopped dead at the sudden sound that came out of nowhere.

Trumpets burst out... in the first strains of the Marsellaise!

He whirled, fumbling for his kodachi, ugly battered yellow-collared cape fluttering dramatically in his wake.

Passersby were strolling past calmly, chatting among themselves, hardly ever looking at him, let alone blowing trumpets in the middle of the street.

But, as Aoshi glanced wildly about him in confusion, the trumpets blared grandly on. Then...

_"Love, love, love!"_

Several voices raised in tuneful, slightly demented-sounding, chorus.

On the other side of town, in the Himura dojo, Kenshin, Kaoru, and Yahiko wailed the three words soulfully.

Aoshi sweatdropped.

_"Love, love, love!"_ Tae, Tsubame, and the rest of the beribboned, frilly-aproned staff of the Akabeko crooned blissfully.

_"Love, love, love..."_

Beshimi. Hannya. Hyottoko. Shikijou.

They were floating mistily some feet above their graves, gleefully roaring out the words in a fake Cockney accent.

Aoshi dropped his kodachi with a clang.

_"There's nothing you can do that can't be done."_ Kenshin shook his head mock-sternly at him over the soap-frothing laundry tub.

_"Nothing you can sing that can't be sung,"_ intoned Okina from the bay window of the Aoiya as hordes of young women scurried away screaming.

_"Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game..."_ Hannya winked hideously.

Perched on his horse amid a blizzard in the snow-covered mountains of China, Sanosuke grinned and flipped him a thumb. _"It's easy!"_

_"There's nothing you can make that can't be made."_ Hiko smirked at him from over the kiln, next to a neat row of shining, perfectly crafted teacups.

_"No one you can save that can't be saved."_ Saitou's feral golden eyes shone out at him from the darkness of his office, through a swirling cloud of cigarette smoke.

_"Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time..."_ Shikijou materialized beside Aoshi just to pat him on the shoulder. As Aoshi spun to face him, the big man vanished again with a fading Cheshire-like shadow of his grin. _"It's easy!"_

_"All you need is love!" _Omasu winked and nudged him in the gut with her elbow as he stood there, stunned helpless. Behind her, Okon blared away on a trombone.

_"All you need is love!"_ Shiro and Kuro raised sake cups in a toast.

_"All you need is love, love..."_ Drifting past in a cloud of hearts, Misao batted her eyelashes at him and blew him a kiss. He sweatdropped even more.

Enishi coughed. _"Love is all you need."_

As the visions winked out into thin air, Aoshi felt a shiver run down his spine. He turned around abruptly and continued to walk—slightly faster than before. He wrapped his coat more tightly around himself and felt his forehead—which, though bathed in sweat, was not quite fever-hot.

He would have thought himself merely hallucinating were it not for the invisible but still very much audible chorus sweetly chanting.

_"Lo-o-ove, lo-o-ove, love!_

_"Lo-o-ove, lo-o-ove, love!_

_"Lo-o-ove, lo-o-ove, love..."_

His heart thudded in his chest and he found his fist closing convulsively around the box with the ring his pocket.

_"All you need is love, all you need is love,_

_"All you need is love, love! Love is all you need!"_

When Seta Soujirou dropped out of the branches of a nearby tree, smiling angelically as ever...

_"There's nothing you can know that isn't known..."_

...he broke into a run.

_"Nothing you can see that isn't shown,"_ Okina whispered cheerily as he spied on the girls in the changing rooms at the neighboring inn.

_"Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."_ Beshimi floated serenely on thin air as Aoshi sped past him. In his wake, Beshimi and Hyottoko linked arms and sang out, _"It's e-e-easy!"_

Now they all gathered for a last, rip-roaring chorus as Aoshi doubled his pace, ignoring his own increasing sense of the futility of escape.

_"All you need is love!"_ (_"All together, now!"_ called Sano.)

_"All you need is love!"_ (_"Everybody!"_ shouted Chief Uramura.)

_"All you need is love, love..."_

His footsteps finally slowed as he came near a familiar low building. Lanterns blazed yellow from within, glowed warm through a window.

_"Love is all you need."_ (_"Love is all you need!"_ echoed Yahiko and Tsubame.) Pausing at the doorstep as the chorus repeated itself, Aoshi drew out the little black box, fingering it thoughtfully.

All around him, the chorus was rapidly disintegrating into laughter, jokes, heckling, incoherent shouting, trumpet-blaring, and a few voices' faint, determined continuation of the refrain.

His four dead ex-henchmen were arm-in-arm—good thing Beshimi was already floating in mid-air—as they weaved back and forth in fresh song. _"She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!... She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah...!"_

As the raucous melody faded at last, Aoshi allowed his face to slip into its customary expressionlessness again. The little box went back in his pocket. He squared his shoulders, looked up at the door with the sign on it, and knocked.

The sign read "Takani-sensei is in."

Before anything else... he needed to have his head checked.

_owari_

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End file.
